Drinks At Work with Sam Bygrave

I’m talking to Jordan Bushell, the global brand ambassador for Hennessy — perhaps you’ve heard of this plucky, young upstart cognac brand that has only been around for — oh, 259 years?Hennessy of course is a well-known brand, one that for many people is synonymous with cognac, and for some people that’s all they know of the spirit. Obviously I think I know a fair bit more about cognac than that, but in talking to Jordan, I got to understand that there is so, so much more to learn about cognac than I realised. I really enjoyed this chat.---A quick note too: this episode is sponsored by Hennessy, because they want to let you know about Jordan’s upcoming visit to New Zealand and Australia this month in support of the Hennessy MyWay 2024 Challenge. It’s the fourth year for this global competition, and the’re launching in Australia and New Zealand for the first time. Jordan will join the Australian and New Zealand Hennessy ambassador Alex Zanarini for five masterclasses starting from Monday 15th April in Auckland, in Brisbane on Tuesday 16th, Melbourne on Wednesday April 17th, over in Perth on Friday the 19th, before finishing in Sydney on Monday April 22nd. Bartenders are invited to come along to an event and participate in Hennessy MyWay, a quest to discover the most innovative and sustainable cocktail creations paired with spectacular serving rituals. On offer are cash prizes of €1000 for top 50 finalists with the top 10 invited to Paris and Cognac to compete in the live final in October.To enter the competition visit myway.hennessy.com, and RSVP to Jordan’s events at https://www.eventcreate.com/e/hennessymyway/

Gin Palace owner Ben Luzz talks about the recent renovations of the bar, the wear and tear that comes with running a bar for almost 30 years. Ben also talks about becoming the custodian custodian of Gin Palace after the passing of Vernon Chalker, and how he keeps a balance between preserving the bar’s legacy and embracing the future. Ben also talks about adding Bijou and Black Kite Commune to his portfolio, the challenges of managing multiple bars on the same street. He also shares his thoughts on the business climate for hospitality in Melbourne, and what makes a great bar.

In this episode I’m talking to the three owners of Ramblin’ Rascal Tavern — Sebastian Cosmo Soto, Charlie Lehmann, and Dardan Shervashidze. When they opened the bar in 2014, they’d come from the best training school for new bar owners at that time: The Baxter Inn. They opened the bar with around $350,000 cobbled together between the three of them and an investor, which they talk about in this episode. And they steered away from the Americana that was a big trend in bars at the time, focusing more on a homegrown culture — but that Swillhouse emphasis on quality was front and centre. “People ask us what kind of bar we are,” Charlie Lehmann told me back in 2014. He said, “Well, we’re an everyman’s bar, we do everything. We do good cocktails, we do good wine, we do good beer — we do shit beer. And lots of shots of cognac.”

We are living in some interesting times for hospitality, with what seems like a conflicting narrative out there at the moment. On the one hand, it seems like every week there’s a notable venue closing. On the other hand, there's been a bar opening boom in the last few months.

The Rooster Rojo Rumble is looking for six bartenders to fly to Sydney — and one to Greece.Abbie Weir is a memorable, compelling human. The agave specialist for Amber Beverages Australia is a big personality in an industry where there that’s a prerequisite.“This industry is all about personality,” Abbie says in this week’s episode of Drinks At Work. “A bartender can make or break your experience.”I’m talking to Abbie this week because she’s also the ambassador for Rooster Rojo, and together we’re hosting The Rooster Rojo Rumble — entries open Friday 1 March.The Rooster Rojo Rumble is a cocktail competition that does things a little differently: yes, it’s about the drink, but it’s also about your personality and your storytelling.Forget ‘signature serves’, forget about brand calls and ‘rituals’ — great drinks travel the world because of the people who love them.

I’ve got a different episode of Drinks At Work this week — I’m calling it Drinks At Work — The List.It’s about how Jay Gray’s Singapore bar, Sago House, got onto the World’s 50 Best Bars list in 2023. It’s a bit of a different format for Drinks At Work, one I’m hoping to roll out from time to time; it’s more of a narrative piece than the conversational episodes that I usually make on Drinks At Work.It’s all to answer this big question: what does it take to get a bar onto a globally recognised list of the best, like The World’s 50 Best Bars list?

I met Stu at the Four Pillars Lab on Crown Street in Surry Hills to chat about his experience with Four Pillars, how and why spirits competitions like this new one from the RAS matter, the state of the Australian distilled spirits industry right now, storytelling, and whether, knowing just how many distilleries are out there right now, he would start Four Pillars today if it didn’t exist.If you’ve met him, you’ll know that Stu is a quote-generating machine, and I could fill a weeks’ worth of stories from the hour-long chat we had (although, and I’m sure he’d agree, that would be a little too much Stu). There are a number of digressions and diversions along the way, and you can tell I was clearly having a good time talking to him.

The Drink of the Year Awards is my favourite event of the Boothby events we do each year, and it’ll be back again in November 2024 for the third year. For this episode of Drinks At Work, however, I’m talking to the bartender behind the drink that took the number one spot on the top 50 last year. That is of course Samuel Thornhill, he’s the head bartender at Melbourne cocktail bar Byrdi, and we talk about how he developed the drink, Bad Apple, why it took over a year to get right, and why he almost walked away from the idea altogether — it’s a drink that’s all about fermentation and makes fermented fallen apples attractive. It’s really interesting what he’s done with it.And, given that Byrdi is one of the few bars genuinely pushing the boundaries of the way drinks are conceived and presented in Australia, I also ask Sam about the creative process at the bar, how drinks get on the list, what they look for in new hires and a lot more. Here’s one thing to keep in mind, if you’re keen on working at Byrdi — you’ll be working across the bar and the kitchen, which — with the likely death of the pure play cocktail bar and the blurring of lines between bar and restaurant — is a genuinely interesting approach to bars and one that might be worth exploring further.https://www.boothby.com.au/drinkoftheyear/

It’s a new year, which means that the next instalment of World Class Australia is about to get underway. I think it’s fair to call it the most influential cocktail competition going around at the moment, and the experience of entering, and potentially make the Top 100, can help grow one’s career behind the bar and in hospitality. So I’m talking today to Diageo Trade Advocacy Manager and Australian World Class Ambassador Kate McGraw, along with Eduardo Conde who is last year’s World Class Australia winner and the guy running El Primo Sanchez in Sydney. We talk about the experience of going to the World Class global finals and what that’s like, get an idea of what is different about this year’s World Class Australia competition, and why attending the Diageo Bar Academy Roadshow with Kate, Eduardo, and former global winner Orlando Marzo, will be both beneficial for your career and essential to getting the most out of World Class this year. This is a sponsored episode of Drinks At Work, and that sponsor is Diageo Bar Academy and World Class Australia, but there’s a lot to be had from this conversation whether you’re wanting to enter the World Class Australia this year or wanting to broaden your skills and experience.But if you are wanting to enter World Class Australia this year — and I’d encourage you to do so — the Diageo Bar Academy Roadshow kicks off next week on Monday the 29th of January in Sydney, Tuesday 30th in Brisbane, in Melbourne on Monday 5th of February, on the 6th in Perth, and on the 6th there will be a live stream as well. But first you’ll want to enter your details here https://form.typeform.com/to/DhzroruT to register for the Diageo Bar Academy Newsletter, and give Kate a follow on Instagram at @katelikescocktails to be ready for when the first challenge is announced on February 12.

If the new bar opening boom of late 2023 is anything to go by, 2024 is going to be a very interesting year for the bar and drinks world.And so for the first episode for Drinks At Work in 2024, I wanted to discuss some of the trends that came out of 2023 and what we might see in the year ahead, and to do that I spoke to the ever thoughtful and creative Ross Blainey.Ross is the brand ambassador and creative collaborations lead for Glenfiddich and The Balvenie in Australia, and a good friend not just of mine but of the Drinks At Work podcast as well — I first spoke to him for the show back in episode four. In that chat we spoke about how the whisky world works, but for this episode I wanted to explore how it is that Ross goes about collaborations and what that means for creativity in the drinks world.That’s because it’s in his role as the creative collaborations lead for his brands that I think Ross really opens up what it means to be a whisky brand ambassador. He is someone who enjoys getting to experience the creative process of others — whether that be award-winning and creative chefs like Lennox Hastie from Sydney restaurant, Firedoor, or in fields further away from the whisky world, like fashion, in which he has collaborated with designers and artists like Jordon Gogos and Akira Isogawa. And it’s that love for the creative process that has seen him do some very interesting work.We also talk a little about the great explosion of new bars in late 2023, and look ahead to what we can expect in 2024. Have we reached peak vinyl listening bar with the 10,000 vinyl records amassed on the shelves at the new Swillhouse venue, Caterpillar Club? What has driven the guest shift and takeover phenomenon, and is it on its last legs?

My guest on this episode is Garth Foster. For the last 15 years garth has worked at luxury drinks group Moet Hennessy, in both brand ambassador and business development on a range of brands, among them Ardbeg, Belvedere vodka and Hennessy. But he recently left Moet Hennessy to launch a new Australian rum brand with his longtime friend David Fesq. They’re a company of two, and Red Mill Rum Co. is the product — So I talk to Garth to see how he’s adjusting to small start up drinks brand life after more than a decade on some of the world’s most luxurious brands. He talks about the lessons he learned working at Moet Hennessy, and how that is shaping his thinking for Red Mill Rum Co, how they make their rum — they’re aiming for an uplifting accessible style of rum, says garth — and what bartenders are thinking about their first product.

Welcome to Drinks At Work from Boothby with Sam Bygrave, that is me. We’ve had some time off the podcast over the last month or so, as we were gearing up for the second annual Boothby Drink of the Year Awards — what a great night that was. The number one drink on the night was from Sam Thornhill at Byrdi in Melbourne with his drink Bad Apple, Rob Libecans took out the Bartender of the Year title — if you haven’t seen the full 50 yet, head over to boothby.com.au/drinkoftheyear —it’s all there.Now, if I’m honest, I was going to have another week off the podcast until I heard last week that The Barber Shop in Sydney — which I remember writing about before it opened — is celebrating its 10th birthday tonight. So last week I stopped in to see co-owner Mike Enright and talk about what the last decade has been like for The Barber Shop, what’s learned, and more. It was his first foray into bar ownership, with business partner Julian Train, and from there they’ve added The Duke of Clarence, and bar and distillery Hickson House in The Rocks.

Have you ever thought about starting your own liquor brand? Opening your own distillery? My guest on this episode is award-winning bartender Tim Laferla, and he has done just that. It’s called Damaged Goods Distilling Co., and in this interview we talk about his start in Perth bars like Mechanics Institute, how his time working in London for Michelin chefs and in zero waste venues shaped his thinking, and how he and his partner Pia Papenfuss have gone about setting up the distillery, and why they’re using food waste to make their spirits. He’s a super smart guy, and there’s a lot to learn from his experience.

Simon McGoram is the regional sales manager for Atom Brands, but he’s also been a brand ambassador, a bar owner, once upon a time he was named NZ’s bartender of the year, and he has been a writer, working for a number of years at Australian Bartender magazine as editor and then later, when I was there, as the drinks editor. In this episode, we talk about unnamed whiskies, independent bottlings and how the whole system works — we talk about That Boutique-y Whisky Company and Atom Brands, teaspooning, blended whisky, age statements, floating rum distilleries in Queensland — the lot. This episode is sponsored by Atom Brands and That Boutique-y Whisky Company, which you can get your hands on through Proof & Company here in Australia.

This episode is a recording of a panel chat I had up in Brisbane as part of Paramount Liquor’s Future Proof event — I spoke about the future of the Brisbane bar scene, what it needs, and where it’s going, with three of the city’s finest: Bonnie Shearston, who earlier this year opened the excellent vinyl bar, Ruby, My Dear, and has owned and operated a nunber of award-winning Brisbane-based venues over the years; Jamie Fleming, the guy behind the acclaimed Alba Bar & Deli, one of my favourite places to be; and one of the shining lights of the next generation of bartenders, Andie Bulley, who was then working at Savile Row — this episode was recorded in August — but who is now on board as the creative lead for Evan Stroeve’s soon to open Sydney bar, The Waratah.

Last weekend we held the first Boothby Best bars Victoria awards, and a good times party for 130 of the industry’s best and brightest bar owners and bartenders. It was at The Lincoln, and we handed out a few awards on the night as well as counting down the top 50 bars in Victoria. Caretaker’s Cottage were on hand to mix the drinks for the night with a takeover — it was incredible, an amazing turnout, and a lot of fun. One of the awards we did hand out on the night was the Person of the Year presented by Orlando. The winner was Cara Devine. Cara is a bartender and bar manager at Bomba in Melbourne, but you might know her as the host of Behind the Bar with Cara Devine, on YouTube, where she has over 150,000 subscribers, or as Bartender magazine’s Melbourne-based writer. I do believe however that Boothby haas the honour of publishing her first before she was picked up by Big Trade Media, so I’m pretty happy about that. She is one of my favourite writers to read when it comes to the Australian bar world, she’s an excellent communicator and demystifies the world of cocktails and spirits better than most, and you can read that in her book on cocktails, Strong, Sweet, & Bitter. She’s a great voice for the industry, and I guess that’s why a panel of more than 100 Victorian bartenders, bar owners, and bartendery types voted her to win the Person of the Year presented by Orlando wines. This episode is one I recorded with Cara back in July 2022 when the podcast was just a few months old — in it Cara talks about writing, how and why she got started on YouTube, what works on YouTube, and more. Congratulations again for the win, thank you to Orlando for sponsoring the award.

I hosted a panel talk — one of the most interesting ones I’ve been involved with — for Proof & Company during Sydney Bar Week, called Casa de Agave and I’ve got the recording of that talk for you on this episode of Drinks At Work. we had some big agave brains on the panel — founder of Agave Cartel and the group bars guy for Sydney hospitality group, Solotel, Reece Griffiths; co-founder of the Mucho Group and its bars including the agave-focused Cantina OK! and Tio’s, Jeremy Blackmore; and a special international guest, Jay Khan, the owner and bartender of the Mexico-inspired cocktail bar Coa in Hong Kong, a bar that has been named Asia’s best bar three years running. We talked about the current agave boom, where it goes next, who the winners and losers are in the world of agave spirits, and loads more — it’s a really spirited discussion, with a range of views, and well worth a listen.

This episode is a recording of an interesting one on one chat I had up in Brisbane last month for Paramount Liquor’s Future Proof event — I spoke with bartender and owner of the soon to open Sydney bar, The Waratah, Evan Stroeve. Evan’s a guy with a great resume, he’s worked at Shady Pines Saloon and The Baxter Inn, ran the show at the much-missed Bulletin Place, and was on the opening crew at Sydney bar Re. He’s been heavily involved in issues around sustainability and in addition to crafting delicious drinks, he’s also a deep thinker on all things bar and hospitality.

My guest on this episode of Drinks At Work is Iain McPherson. He’s the owner and bartender behind Edinburgh bars Panda & Sons and Nauticus, and he’s long had a passion for the cold: he’s the guy who developed the switching technique, which employs advanced freezers to enhance the flavour of liquors, and souspression, another freezing technique to help create new drinks.

I’m talking to one of my favourite Australian bartenders in this episode, it’s James Connolly. He’s a veteran of the Perth bartending scene, one of the nicest guys in the business, and recently he opened the very bar of his own, Bertie in Bassendean in Perth. He’s one of a growing number of bartenders turned owners who have decided to open places a little further from the CBD, so he talks a bit about the motivations behind that, about his career today which has seen him in multiple roles, and he talks about the importance of reviews, too.

Earlier in August, Sam Bygrave hosted a panel talk with Daisy Tulley and Wade Tiller titled Future Proof Your Brand. Daisy Tulley is the general manager of Sydney’s Mucho Group, whose bars include The Cliff Dive, Tio’s, Bar Planet, and World’s 50 Best Bar, Cantina OK!. The Mucho Group also has their own brand of seltzer which they sell under the Cantina OK! brand, which made for some good back and forth with my other guest for this talk, Wade Tiller. Wade is one of the co-founders of Australian seltzer brand Hard Fizz, and someone who has long worked on the sales and retail side of the drinks business. It’s a great chat about building your brand, we dive into how they approach brand identity and development, the importance of owning a colour, and loads more.

This week I’m talking to the Maidenii vermouth and Marionette Liqueurs founder, Shaun Byrne, about his career but also about the Australian Distilled Spirits Awards, of which he is the new head judge. The ADSA is the biggest spirits judging competition in Australia, and I think it’s the most reputable — they have a mix of bartenders, writers, retail buyers, and distillery industry folks on their many panels as judges, and it’s a pretty robust system they have in place. So i talk to Shaun about the awards — this was recorded back in July just before the judging actually took place. But Shaun got his start as a bartender, eventually working at the iconic Melbourne bar, Gin Palace, for eight years under the late and great Vernon Chalker, and we talk a bit about how went from bartender to booze maker.

Hamish Smith is the editor of CLASS Magazine in the UK, the bars editor fro Drinks International, and an academy chair for The World’s 50 best Bars. He’s also the creator and organiser behind Drinks International’s Bar World 100 list — so he knows a thing or two about bar awards and lists.And that forms a large part of our chat this episode. I ask Hamish about whether the lists are good for the industry, we talk about how sometimes the lists and awards can produce strange behaviour from operators wanting to get their bars on there — we talk about the benefits, the drawbacks, and a lot more on that topic.But Hamish also saves his thoughts on the future of drinks journalism, a topic in which I obviously have a great interest; we talk about how he does his bar reviews, and what it takes to open a bar in London these days.This episode is presented by The Gresham's Greenhorn Cocktail Competition — visit thegresham.com.au/the-greenhorn for the full rules and to enter. Entries close at midnight AEST on Tuesday August 22nd.

On this ***bonus*** episode we're taking a tour of new Sydney bar, Tucano's Lounge, to find out what we should expect when the bar — from the team behind last year's About Time popup — opens.I'm talking to Steve Davis, co-owner of Tucano's Lounge and Sydney bar industry veteran about how they basically built the bar themselves, how they're steering their modern tropical tiki drinks away from an over-reliance on rum towards other spirits, and a lot more.

Something a little different to the usual on this episode: we're talking to award-winning bartender Anneliese Grazioli and breaking a bit of news — she’s got a new bar on the way, called Bar Kokomo, so we’re going to find out what to expect when it opens in mid-to-late September. Anneliese has built quite the career for herself up in Darwin, she worked for a long time for David and Kelly Robinson, at their longstanding tequila bar and restaurant, Hot Tamale, she’s won a bunch of bartending comps and prizes during that time. Anneliese then went on to become a business partner of the Robinsons, opening her first bar — Hanky Panky Lounge — at the start of 2022. It must be doing well, because bar number two is on the way.

It’s one thing for a bartender to think about opening a bar of their own one day — after all, you’ve worked in bars, hopefully have run one or two and have an idea of the business side of things, you’ve got a sense of costings and hiring and know what makes a bar work. But it’s an all-together different thing to launch a drinks brand — even one that is informed by your bartending experience, like Idle Hands Drinks Co. owners Andy McIntyre and Mitch Keane have done.

In this episode, Sam Ng talks about his journey from chef to bartender to ambassador, to criss-crossing the Asia Pacific region. And he talks about why he gave up the ambassador life and came back to open his own bar, how a series of pop-ups gave him proof of concept, and loads more.

This episode, I'm talking to Nick Winter and Pete Hollands from Frog's Hollow Saloon in Brisbane, which took out two awards last month at the Boothby Best Bars QLD awards: Best New Bar QLD presented by Patron Tequila, and the big one, the Best Bar in Queensland presented by Giffard. They've got great advice on how they built their bar, the systems they've out in place, and what it might cost to open a bar of your own.Get a look at photos from the Boothby Best Bars QLD awards here.See the list of the 30 best bars in Queensland here.

This is a show about building creative and rewarding careers in and around the world of drinks. This episode, I'm talking to RockY Hair — she's the group ops manager for the Mucho Group, whose venues include Tio's Cerveceria, Cliff Dive, Cantina OK!, and Bar Planet.

This is a show about building creative and rewarding careers in and around the world of drinks. This episode I’m talking to Mitch Townsend, the Flor de Caña brand ambassador for Australia, New Zealand and Japan.The Flor de Caña Sustainable Cocktail Challenge is the sponsor of this show, too, so in this episode Mitch shares some advice on what will make a winning drink in that competition, as well as his insights into the world of ambassadoring, and tips for building a big career in the bar world.Registrations are open until June 15 for the Australian selection, and bartenders must register their cocktail creation online at www.flordecanachallenge.com. More information about the challenge can be found on the website.

This episode I’m talking to James Christopher, who is one third of the ownership trio behind Sydney city rum distillery, Brix. Brix began in 2017, and opened a distillery and bar on Bourke street in Surry Hills. They’ve been laying down rum ever since, and this year they’ve had a couple of breakthroughs on their journey — they’ve reached the point now that they don’t need to import older aged spirit from Barbados, and instead are bottling rum that has been made from molasses through to spirit at the Bourke Street site. They’ve also just picked up nationwide distribution through SouthTrade International, which effectively expands their small Sydney sales team into a national outfit with sales reps everywhere. So I talk to James about how Brix got started, the hurdles they faced along the way, whether or not rum is really the next big thing in spirits, and he also shares some advice on how you too might get started building a brand or a distillery. It’s a good chat.

This episode first aired in December 2022, but we're giving it another because Simone Caporale is in Sydney next week for the Maybe Cocktail Festival (maybecocktailfestival.com). Simone Caporale is something of a renaissance bartender — he’s a busy guy. He’s in the process of expanding his Barcelona bar Sips — which opened in 2021 and landed at number three on The World’s 50 Best Bars list this year — and has more than a few strands to what he does, and a recent roundup includes the following: along with Alex Kratena and Monica Berg, he created the innovative Muyu liqueurs brand; launched another brand, Amaro Santoni; worked on another brand Canaïma Gin, which sustainable sources botanicals from the Amazon (and raises money for conservation efforts); took over ownership of the historic Boadas bar in Barcelona; and most recently launched the Art of Shaking, a subscription training program for bartenders that teaches you the things you don’t get to learn in every other cocktail course.

Kate McGraw is the Australian World Class ambassador and the guest on this episode. The World Class ambassador role is a big job, and I talk to Kate about that and how she got to this point in her career, why preparation is so important, what she had to improve upon to do the job well (and why), and lots more. It’s a good chat and I think you’ll find plenty of advice in there whether you’re interested in working for brands, or just want to improve your own approach to your work.There’s also some great advice to anyone wanting to enter the World Class Bartender of the Year 2023 — and some very good reasons why you should. http://diageobaracademy.com

This episode we’ve got something a little bit different. This is a recording of a panel chat that I hosted the other week in Sydney at Paramount Liquor’s Future Proof Forum. It was a great night, a number of different distilleries and brands were on hand offering samples, and we had a great audience to listen to three of the talks on the night. This one you’re about to hear was about future proofing our industry — on the panel was Charlie Ainsbury from Proof & Company, Mariella Menato from Denomination Design, and Darren Leaney who is the head of product for Worksmith in Melbourne. We talk about sustainability for the spirits business and thankfully the panel was an engaging because that topic can get a little dry, and we also talked about pay in the bar world, if bartenders should be getting into bar ownership and if so, how, and we talked about what the panel wanted to see in the years to come. I really enjoyed this chat — I think you will too.

This is a show about building creative and rewarding careers in and around the world of drinks.My guest on this episode is James Young. James is the founder of Old Young’s, a small WA distillery in the Swan Valley that makes gin and vodka — and one which has racked up a number of big accolades since beginning in 2016. In 2017 and 2018 they were named champion Australian distiller at the highly regarded Australian Distilled Spirits Awards. More recently — just the other week in fact — at the Icons of Gin Awards in London, Old Young’s was named both the craft producer of the year AND the brand innovator of the year for the Old Young’s Juniper Society, a monthly subscription product that came about during the darker days of the pandemic. So in this episode James shares some interesting thoughts about the costs involved in opening a distillery (and what it would take to do it today), how and more importantly why he set up a distillery despite having no background in the discipline; the importance of making products with a reason for being which can be applied not just to spirits, but to the bar world as well, and their efforts — which are underway right now — to fund the next phase of the brand through the Birchal platform and crowdsourced funding. Their stretch target as James talks about here is $3 million and when I last looked this morning, it looks like they’ll get there.

My guest on this episode is Sean Baxter. Sean began his working life as a bartender up in Brisbane, before moving to Melbourne and eventually getting into the brand side of things as a brand ambassador. It’s that experience which stood him in good stead when he and business partners Tim Boast and George Georgiadis began Never Never Distilling Co in 2016. Since they first released their gin in 2017, they’ve won numerous accolades, and become something of a bartender favourite. Their gin is all about the juniper, and they went out with the aim of making a London dry style gin that’s all their own — but also one that beats the big premium gin brands of London.So in this chat Sean and I talk about what it took get that brand up and running, how they began in rather humble surrounds — as Sean says, they were a small distillery on the wall of someone else’s property with no running water — and hear his advice on how one might go about starting a brand today and get an idea of what they might cost. I know a lot of bartenders who would love to launch a brand of their own, and there’s a lot here for you if that’s you, whether that’s a spirits brand or another business venture.

My guest on this episode is Krystal Hart. In this chat we get a look under the hood of the brand ambassador life. Krystal is the national bartender engagement and trade advocacy manager at Campari Australia, and one of the leading lights of the bar scene in this country for over a decade. Krystal stepped into the brand advocacy side of the bar business in 2013 with a gig for Diageo’s Reserve Brands portfolio, but before that she worked in some of Brisbane’s best cocktail bars at the time: Sling Lounge, The Bowery, and Canvas to name but a few. After moving to Sydney as an ambassador, Krystal also used to do a couple of shifts at the much-missed Bulletin Place - she’s definitely got skills behind the bar.Krystal capped her time working with the Diageo portfolio last year, when she finished up as the trade advocacy manager and brand ambassador for World Class off the back of staging the World Class global finals in Sydney.She’s widely respected, super knowledgeable, and engaging to talk to — in this episode we talk about how she went from studying acting to falling in love with hospitality; we talk about what it takes to be a brand ambassador, the character traits that have led her to build the successful career she has, and her advice to anyone thinking of a career in the business.

My guest on this episode is the owner of Clipper in Auckland, which is talked about as the best cocktail bar in New Zealand: His name is Barney Toy. Barney is originally from the UK, but has spent a lot of his life working bars in New Zealand. Clipper debuted in 2019, but then a pandemic came along. We don’t really talk about the pandemic and lockdowns in this chat, but it’s interesting to note how the time of covid spurred the creation of multiple revenue streams for the bar — so that they are not solely reliant on what goes through the till at Clipper every night, and so, in the words of Barney, “Clipper can just be Clipper.” They’ve got consultancy work for other bars, and they started First Class Cocktails, a quality batched cocktail service for other hospitality venues. I know of a few bars developing this model of a bar as a showroom — so it’s great to get into it with Barney. We also talk about his creative process, the attitudes he has adopted after becoming a bar owner, and how bartenders ought to value themselves and their services correctly. We get into that, we get into mentorship, and a whole lot more.

My guest on this episode is Julie Reiner: you may know her from any one of the New York bars she’s opened since 2003: Flatiron Lounge, Pegu Club, Clover Club, and most recently, Milady’s. She’s written cocktail books, judge cocktail comps around the world, and won numerous accolades for her bars and herself. Or if you’ve just come into the bar world, you might know her from TV and the Netflix show Drink Masters, which debuted in October last year to much success.Drink Masters is a competitive bartending show — like Masterchef for bars — and it’s really the first of its kind — I do remember seeing a show about Diageo’s World Class comp on TV once, but I think it was an ad more than a show. Drink Masters is a new thing, and when it came out there seemed to be two takes: one, that it all molecular and foams and airs smoke and mirrors, and that it wasn’t real bartending — and the other, that it was great to see bartending get this kind of exposure. For what it’s worth, I’ve been watching it recently, and I think it’s a net positive — I mean, it’s very American in tone, as I say to Julie in this chat, but I think it’s pretty genuine and I’d like to see more of it.So I talk to Julie about the show of course, and what that experience was like behind the scenes. But I also talk to her about how she makes decisions on which opportunities to pursue, about the qualities she has that have set up her up for this remarkable career, what it takes to open a bar now as opposed to 10 and 20 years ago, what makes a great bar and more.

This is a show about how you can go about building a creative and rewarding career in and around the world of drinks. We’re back for the 2023 season of the show, and today’s episode is a little different. It’s a live recording of a Q&A I held with JULIO BERMEJO at PS40 in Sydney after an Altos Tequila masterclass there. Julio is best known as the creator of the Tommy’s Margarita — but he’s a lot more than that. Not only does he run his family’s San Francisco restaurant, Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, he is an offical ambassador for tequila to the world, and has won a number of accolades, including the lifetime achievement award at Tales of the Cocktail in 2014 and the industry icon award at the 2017 World’s 50 Best Bars ceremony.

Dre Masso is a bartender who has done just about everything in a varied, successful career — and he's coming to Australia to share his experience soon. He's touring Australia with Julio Bermejo to talk about The Collective Spirit competition from Altos Tequila which has a $50,000 USD prize — keep an eye out for venues and dates soon.He also talks about how he chooses collaborative partners, how he helped create Altos Tequila, the importance of recognising opportunity and more.http://www.tahonasociety.com/competition-form

Simone Caporale is something of a renaissance bartender — he’s a busy guy. He’s in the process of expanding his Barcelona bar Sips — which opened in 2021 and landed at number three on The World’s 50 Best Bars list this year — and has more than a few strands to what he does, and a recent roundup includes the following: along with Alex Kratena and Monica Berg, he created the innovative Muyu liqueurs brand; launched another brand, Amaro Santoni; worked on another brand Canaïma Gin, which sustainable sources botanicals from the Amazon (and raises money for conservation efforts); took over ownership of the historic Boadas bar in Barcelona; and most recently launched the Art of Shaking, a subscription training program for bartenders that teaches you the things you don’t get to learn in every other cocktail course.Needless to say, there's a lot to learn from this chat with Simone for anyone wanting to craft a creative career in the world of bars and drinks.https://www.boothby.com.auhttp://theartofshaking.com

Stefano Catino is the very definition of the consummate host. Walk into Maybe Sammy when he’s on duty — or in any of the Maybe Group’s other venues, be it the coffee-focused Sammy Jr, pizza joint Maybe Frank, or the luxe surrounds of cocktail bar Dean & Nancy on 22 — and he’s commands the room. So on this episode, Stefano talks to me about why he does what he does, what it is that he thinks makes Maybe Sammy special, his hopes for their next bar, El Primo Sanchez, and we even break some news around the real story behind the theatrical use of a bubble gun at Maybe Sammy — something that says a lot about the teams approach to experience and service.Maybe Sammy has won just about every award in Australia that they can, and it has been a fixture of the World’s 50 best Bars list since the bar opened, so I talk him about the importance of these kinds of awards, and what they do for business. But we also talk about how the business began with Maybe Frank back in 2015 — they didn’t do it with big budgets, but with passion and a commitment to quality — and some smart marketing ploys along the way.

Today I’m talking to Orlando Marzo. Ever since landing in London in 2009, Orlando has worked hard at some very good bars: he talks here a bit about The Player and Milk & Honey in London, two very consequential bars, and you get an insight into just how much work and preparation went into those roles, not just for Orlando but for everyone who worked at the group that owned it, The Rushmore Group. I’ve met a few people with Rushmore group training, and they’re invariably very good at whatever they do. The things Orlando learned there have stayed with him — he’s now an award-winning bartender, with Eau de Vie Melbourne, Dinner by Heston, Lume and many more top-end Melbourne bars on his resume. These days he splits his time between the bar consultancy world, which he talks about here, and his own beautifully packaged bottled cocktail brand, Loro.On this episode I ask him about what it was he learned in London that set him up for today, what his week looks like, how he goes about his consultancy work, and how he developed not just the brand for Loro, but the drinks and market positioning as well. It’s a little longer chat than usual, but that’s just because I enjoy talking shop with Orlando any chance I get. This is one for those of you who are looking to strike out from behind the bar, whether it’s with a product of your own, or launching your own business based on your expertise.

Today I’m talking to Ryan Chetiyawardana. You may have heard of him. The London-based bartender and creative is behind the Mr Lyan group of venues, which began in 2013 with White Lyan in Hoxton — he closed that in 2017 to launch two venues in its place: Cub, and Super Lyan. In 2014 he launched Dandelyan in London — before killing that venue in 2019 to relaunch as Lyaness, one of my favourite bars in the world. He moved Super Lyan to Amsterdam in 2019, and launched Silver Lyan in the US in Washington DC in 2020 just before the pandemic arrived.He’s known for his creativity and an approach to bars and drinks that asks, why do we do it this way? And many of the trends we see around the world in bars today have taken at least some inspiration from his experiments with White Lyan and Dandelyan some years ago.

Today I’m talking to the talented Kayla Reid. This award-winning bartender and bar manager has just begun a new role created specifically for her at the Speakeasy Group. She's their new beverage creative and mentor and in this chat, we talk about the how she came to get this role, and her advice for bartenders wanting to craft an interesting role for themselves in the creative side of the bar business. We also get some insight into what's coming for new Speakeasy Group venues, The Sanderson, and Eau de Vie Sydney.

Today I’m talking to Lauren Mote.She's the Global Director of On-Trade Excellence for Patrón Tequila, and oversees the brand's advocacy and education with bartenders across the globe. She's also behind the revamp of their Patrón Perfectionists Global Cocktail Competition, and today she talks about her journey to this one of a kind role, what's changed in the Patrón Perfectionists program, her advice for entering and succeeding and more.www.academiapatron.com/patronperfectionistshttps://www.youtube.com/c/AcademiaPatrón/featuredhttps://www.instagram.com/academia_patron/

Today I’m talking to Jordan Blackman.He's the group beverage manager for Sydney's Odd Culture Group, and has spent the last decade working in and running some of Sydney's best known bars. Here he tells us just what a group beverage role entails, how he got to the job, and loads more.

My guest on this episode is ERIK LORINCZ. He’s as big name bartender as you get: he won the global World Class final in 2010, was the 10th head bartender at the American Bar at the storied Savoy Hotel in London, taking it to number 1 on the world’s 50 best bars list in 2017, before opening his own bar, Quaint — which also found itself on The World’s 50 Best Bars the year it debuted. He even has his own line of premium shakers and bar tools which are just beautiful.Erik will be in Australia next week, when he’s in town as a judge for the global final of Diageo’s world class bartending competition, so I took this opportunity to talk to him about his career, what the weight of responsibility of being the head bartender at a bar like the American Bar feels like, his tips on winning world class (and whether he would still win today), his advice on what makes a great bar, and loads more.

The World’s 50 Best Bars is a big deal. Held each year in October since 2009, when a bar lands on the list it can change their fortunes: they get more press coverage, they receive more trade, and they find it easier to hire good staff.But it’s also something of a lightning rod for criticism.So in this episode, I talk to mark Sansom, content director for 50 Best Bars, and we address some of the criticisms, what it takes to put on an awards show of this magnitude, and loads more.